It is bad enough to be obliged through binding circumstances to sell one’s virtue, but think of the horror, the humiliation, the degradation of committing acts for the sake of drunken, orgy-loving men that even the animal nature within us rebels against.
That is a hasty sketch of the “redlight” life as the visitor sees it. There is still another phase, a deeper phase, a commercial phase, a graft phase, and of that we shall speak later as it is our intention to show why these conditions exist without hindrance from the police and how this mighty army of Satan strives, struggles and dies for the earthly lords of hell.
There is no intention here to paint a lurid picture of Chicago’s ulcer spots that might arouse passions and do evil.
We are telling of the Great Curse that we may help destroy it. We have said that the wiping out of the prostitute will not cure the malady and we are soon to prove it. We have told of vice that we may show how it serves its masters.
THE HIDDEN TRAGEDIES.
Who can depict the crying, aching hearts of these lost women of the levees?
Who can tell of the agonies undergone in their short existences?
Who can know of the sleepless nights, of the hours of remorse and despair?
Who can imagine the physical pain of the eating, wasting diseases?
All the world’s wretchedness, sorrow, hunger, thirst and suffering lies behind the lurid lights of the “redlight” haunts. Behind the paint and powder is the blue-white color of coming death.